Thus began the next chapter, trying to fix the watch, but for the life of me I couldn't remember in what combination I needed to press the three control buttons to get the watch re-set back to the right day, date and time. Meanwhile, the alarm clock sounded again (I had originally hit the SNOOZE, not turned off the alarm) and, though I hadn't even gotten out of bed yet, the day was taking an ugly turn. G wisely vacated the cabin, promising me he'd fix the watch later, but I was determined to do it myself (shades of "Me do!!" from over 50 years ago). And I did finally do it, and quickly dressed and inserted contacts and rushed up to Deck 11 forward where Douglas told me I had just missed the dolphins and they had been even more numerous and active than last time.
Welcome to my world.
Still, it was a beautifully sunny day, quite windy, but very different from our last visit in that there were no brooding sea cliffs shrouded by big rain clouds and no rainbows.
We were greeted by the (by now, almost) expected drummers once on shore
Source: Moon Tahiti Guide
The map of Taiohae from the Moon Tahiti Guide looks quite a bit different...but I wasn't aware of that yet.
...beautiful flowering trees, and...
Gorgeous carved wood "barn-type" doors at the entrance to the cathedral
Each side of the cathedral was open, not glass, but totally open. You can see the Stations of the Cross below it.
These feet were made for walking (excuse the surgery ravaged one on the right, please)
As soon as the Pacific Princess passed the Sentinals (the small island rocks on either side of the harbor entrance) and entered Taiohae Bay, we were surprised to see the freighter/passenger ship Aranui 3 at a small freight pier just inside the harbor. The Aranui 3 is an interesting boat...it travels between Papeete and all the inhabited Marquesas islands 17 times a year, the major source of supplies for these islands. It is mostly a freighter but does have a few passenger cabins ($$$) that offer 14-night cruises to islands that are otherwise almost impossible to visit. The Aranui 3 stayed at the freight dock for just an hour or so after we arrived and then left to drop off supplies at another part of Nuku Hiva, this time by tender itself. That's what it does when an island or part of an island lacks even a small pier for it to dock at.
We had breakfast in the Club Restaurant and then returned to the cabin to pack for the day. Even the view from the ship's webcam on Channel 49 showed what a gorgeous day it was going to be.
Taiohae Bay, Nuku Hiva, in a collapsed volcano caldera
We took an early tender to shore hoping to get on wifi at the Cafe Vaeaki before the crew arrived. We had some serious financial stuff to attend to; our Princess Visa card bill was due in the next few days. All of our final payments and Future Cruise Credit purchases had caught up with us...it was time to pay the piper and get the funds in the right place to do so.
My view from Cafe Vaeaki while I undernetted
Undernet at Cafe Vaeaki is free with a beverage purchase, but, thankfully, they do not sell Hinanos, or beer of any kind. They do, however, offer the best freshly squeezed juices imaginable, and I purchased a large mango juice (G got a grapefruit juice) to enjoy while I used wifi. Apparently, freshly squeezed mango juice is quite high in fiber because, as I was sitting there, I became aware of a quickly growing need to use a restroom. There was a restroom just next door at the tender pier, but it was locked. I was directed to go back to the cafe to get the key. Well, they didn't have the key, but a waitress started walking down the row of shops (ATV rental, dive shop, etc.) asking if they had what was obviously the only key to the only bathroom on the pier. Finally, when my need had grown so desperate I could hardly walk behind her, a key was produced. Voila! However, things detiorated from that point. The bathroom was disgusting, and now owns second-worst place in my all time worst bathrooms of the world ranking (displacing a pit in Italy, but almost any public toilet in China still owns top (or is it bottom?) honors). I walked back to my backpack at the cafe and grabbed the two Wet Wipes I had with me, then returned to the bathroom. I used the first to wipe down the toilet (not toilet seat, because there was none) and the second to attend to my personal needs. And all the while I had to remind myself that this was just a passing nightmare in this dream I am living. But friends who know how fussy I am about these things understand that this whole experience was akin to the time a snake crawled across my face in Morocco. Some travel adventures are NOT good!!
As more crew members showed up, Undernet at Cafe Vaeaki slowed to a snail's pace. G has no patience with this sort of thing, and announced that he was done. However, I was in the middle of downloading -or trying to download- an audiobook from the library using the Overdrive app. Out of ten parts, I was on Part 5 and hopeful I could get this done. G said he wanted to climb a hill behind the tender pier, and so set out to do that. We knew we'd meet up later, but turned on the local cell phone service (Vini) on our iPhones in case we didn't. I didn't last much longer...the Undernet had ground to a halt, and left the cafe, looking for G on the hillside. I didn't see him.
I pulled up the Maps.me app for Nuku Hiva; I wanted to see the Marquesan wood carvings in Notre Dame Cathedral in the village of Taiohae where we were. We had attempted to find the church the last time we were on Nuku Hiva, in between the rain showers we'd experienced that day, but were unsuccessful. By attempted, I mean we had walked along the waterfront for ten minutes before G announced that we clearly didn't know where we were going. Let me translate for you: in G-speak that means "We've walked ten minutes on flat land and been splashed by several passing cars and haven't yet arrived at the thing I really wasn't all that interested in seeing in the first place". So we gave up that day. But seeing the cathedral was still #1 on my list of things to do.
I had shown two local gentleman having a meal at the Cafe Vaeaki the following Maps.me app and asked which of those two white roads I should take to see Notre Dame, as it appeared the church was in between them. Adding to my confusion was the fact that there was a large white cross erected on a hillside above the village; I assumed the cathedral was near the cross.
Never assume. And never take directions from two men who don't understand what you're asking if you don't understand what they're telling you. The opportunities for disaster were compounding by the minute. Still, I wanted to see that church. Thinking I knew what I was doing, I started out, with no water and no money. I wasn't going that far...I thought I'd be fine.
Source: Maps.me
I walked a long ways down this road and then started climbing the hill, trying to get to the cross on the hillside. When it finally became obvious that this was not the right direction, I turned around. When I saw a lady hanging wash out in her yard, I tried to solicit her assistance using all five of my conversational French phrases:
Bonjour (Hello)
S'il vous plait (HELP!)
Je suis perdu (I'm lost)
Je ne comprends pas (I don't understand (pretty much any French, let alone the directions you're currently rattling off to me))
Merci (please pray for me, 'cause I'm going to need it)
By gestures, I learned that I was supposed to return to the main road and turn right. I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do after that, but, relying on my Maps.me map, and still chasing that cross on the hillside, I took the very next right and tried again. It was getting hot- it was in the high 80s and sunny, but, thankfully not too humid- and I passed by this church off to my right. I discounted it at first; it didn't have much of a "cathedral" look about it, but eventually turned around and came back down the road that led to the road off of which this church was located.
As I was climbing a very steep gravel path to what had to be Notre Dame Cathedral (because there was nothing else even remotely church-y around), I was thinking that maybe it was time for Rome to loosen its purse strings; surely the Catholics of Nuku Hiva deserved better than this. I wondered momentarily that, if the front door was unlocked, I would be safe going inside when there was clearly no one else around. Perhaps fortunately, I didn't need to worry; the doors were locked up tight. I peeked in a window to get a glimpse of the gorgeous Marquesan wood carvings I'd heard so much about and saw...
...no wood carvings at all. One look at the inside of this church without a crucifix or Blessed Virgin anything told me I was clearly not at Notre Dame Cathedral. It had been a wasted 90 minutes of climbing hills in the hot Nuka Hivan sun.
Feeling very put upon and sorry for myself, I returned to the tender pier, where even the locals selling their crafts were giving me pitying glances. "Chaud, tres chaud". Yeah, no kidding. I was certain I was red of face and wet of sweat by that time. I stood in the line to board a tender only to look several people ahead of me to see G, also returning to the ship. He was shocked I hadn't already gone back; he had climbed the hill and then went to a beach and met some fellow passengers and walked down to Notre Dame Cathedral- the REAL Notre Dame Cathedral- to see the wood carvings. Did I see them, he asked.
What I said next will not be published here, but, after returning to the ship for a cool down and rehydration and lunch, we set out again, together this time, to see Notre Dame Cathedral and the beach and all the other wonders of the village of Taiohae that I apparently had missed, such as...
...half naked men blowing shell horns signaling the start of a folkloric show at the visitors center.
Their local dances reminded me a great deal of the Maori dances in New Zealand, a bit war-like even while being welcoming.
It was nearly 2pm by then, so we moved on, walking further along the waterfront (but never needing to climb a single hill!) to where a stone with a simple cross on it marked the entrance to Notre Dame Cathedral.
Okay, this was more like it. One look would tell me this place was Catholic.
The prayer grotto on the church grounds
And, finally, something familiar. Now THIS is a cathedral.
The Stations of the Cross were all beautifully carved from wood
The baptismal fount was made of simply carved stone, with a carving above it.
The lecturn was very ornate
Well, it took awhile, but I saw Notre Dame Cathedral, Taiohae's most famous attraction, and it was almost (not quite) worth everything I had gone through to get there. The (probably) Catholic elementary school located next to the church was letting out for the day as we left, and it was fun to see all the little ones running into their waiting parents' arms proudly carrying their art project of the day. Kids are the same everywhere.
Just beyond Notre Dame Cathedral along the waterfront was Temehea Tohua, created for the Marquesas Islands Festival in 1989. The views from here were striking.
G believes that the fact that nearly every statue from ancient times looks the same, with helmets and goggle-type facial features indicates that there were ancient aliens on the Marquesas Islands eons ago.
The ancient Marquesans were not big on facial features but every stone carving was anatomically correct.
We made our way back around the bay to the area by the yacht anchorage, only a 10-minute walk or so east of the tender dock to check out the minimal brown-sand beach. It is rocky, but entirely usable, and several cruise passengers spent part of their day there. Just past the beach, we heard loud rap music indicating, we thought, some local teens hanging out. Well, they were local teens, but they were taking advantage of old tennis courts to do all sorts of strenuous physical training, push ups and back pull-ups and lunge jumps, etc. It's commendable, and understandable. They spend a large portion of their lives shirtless and wearing pareos. That's a huge motivation to get ripped.
We were on the very last tender back to the ship at 4:30pm. I took this photo of a 6-person outrigger trying (unsuccessfully) to surf the tender's wake, but got a video of all three outriggers that tried; two of them successfully managed to. I'll try to post it eventually.
Once back in the cabin, I removed my Teva sandals to reveal feet dark with dirt or sun, I wasn't sure which (it was about 50/50). I washed my hands, then took off my sandals, then washed my hands, then washed my sandals, then washed my hands, then washed my feet, then finally stepped into the shower. It had been a long, dirty day.
We made a mad dash to the Elite Lounge (it was Breeza Marina night, after all). It was already dark outside by 5:30pm (ship's time), another indicator of how far east we had traveled. Then dinner with Jose and Olexandr, the production show Do You Wanna Dance, then listening first to the Pacific Princess orchestra in the Pacific Lounge and then Great Escape in the Casino Lounge. By then, it was 10pm after a day that had started with alarms at 5:30am. I didn't have the energy to type even a single word of that day's blog, but, thankfully, today was a sea day, giving me time to catch up.
It's after 4pm when I finally get this written, but my recount of today's sea day happenings will, of necessity, be more brief. Luckily, that will be easy; aside from a couple of typical sea day activities, it's been an uneventful day. More later...
